


Muffin Special

by Xparrot



Category: One Piece
Genre: Baking, Comment Fic, Friendship, Gen, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-25
Updated: 2009-09-25
Packaged: 2017-10-08 19:09:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/Xparrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first few weeks after they bring the mikan trees on board, Sanji goes a little wild, browsing his cookbooks, trying his hand at mikan tarts and salads and preserves, freezing them for desserts and adding them to sauces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Muffin Special

**Author's Note:**

> Nikojen asked for "One Piece - Sanji &amp; Nami - something nakama-shippy". Set very early, pre-Grand Line.

Fresh fruit was often hard to come by on the Baratie. So for the first few weeks after they bring the mikan trees on board, as they sail for Logue Town, Sanji goes a little wild, browsing his cookbooks, trying his hand at mikan tarts and salads and preserves, freezing them for desserts and adding them to sauces. All prove a big hit, especially worth it for the way Nami-san delights in every taste.

Hoping to make a special surprise, Sanji polls the rest of the crew. The stupid swordsman doesn't bother remembering anything he ate more than a day before, and Luffy can't describe food in greater detail than "meat," or "dessert." But Usopp mentions orange muffins, so Sanji stays up a couple nights finessing the recipe, and finally bakes a batch of mikan muffins for breakfast.

They smell right, so rather than eat himself, Sanji watches the rest of the crew--Nami-san especially, whose eyes go oddly bright when he sets the muffin tray on the table. He watches her pick up the largest muffin, carefully peel back the wrapper with slender fingers (are they trembling?), and break off a piece, which she slowly brings up to her mouth and closes her lips over.

For a moment her face is a blank; then she pales and her mouth folds into a wrinkle, and she swallows with a revolted gulp that's loud enough for Sanji to hear like thunder, over the din of the others gobbling. Nami-san ducks her head and grabs her glass of water, quaffs all of it, then gets up from the table and hurries out of the galley, keeping her face turned from Sanji all the while.

Sanji stands there at the head of the table, unmoving, feeling like he's at the bottom of a very deep and dank well, with buckets of cold water being drawn up from his heart, while the others finish chowing down, cheerfully oblivious. They all thank him for the food when they're done, but Sanji doesn't hear any of them.

Not until Usopp claps him on the back, saying, "Thanks, Sanji, those were delicious, as good as my mom's!"

Then Sanji gets it.

That afternoon he makes mousse, pastries, six flavors of sherbet, chocolate flowers. In the end he doesn't take any of them, but goes empty-handed to the door of Nami-san's cabin, and only has to take four deep breaths before he brings himself to knock.

"Yes?" Nami-san calls, and Sanji's knees tremble.

"Nami-san," he wails, "I'm so sorry, I should never have made those muffins, I had no right--how could I ever affect to imitate a mother's cooking, I'll never do anything so grievously disrespectful to you again--"

The latch clicks and Nami-san's door opens, with her standing there behind it. "Sanji-kun," she says, "it's all right."

Her face is no longer wan and pursed in disgust, and it's only because he's stared into her beautiful eyes so often that he can tell they're a little red--only the slightest bit, at the corners, enhancing the depths of tender hazel brown.

"But how could I do something so unthinking?" Sanji gasps. "To imagine that I could bake anything conceivably comparable to what your mother baked for you--"

Nami-san's lovely lips quirk. "No...they weren't really comparable," she agrees.

"I'll never do it again," Sanji desperately declares, "so if someday you could contemplate forgiving me--"

He's not ready for Nami-san to take his shoulders in her slim, strong hands; he almost faints from the joy of her touch. "Sanji-kun, I forgive you now," she says. "It was sweet of you. And really, I'd like to try them again. When I'm ready for it. This morning, it's just..." She makes a face. "The last time I had mikan muffins, I was sick for two days. So I need to get used to them."

Sanji stares at her. "Two days?"

"Baking powder instead of flour will do that," Nami-san says. "My mother...wasn't really into cooking. But she tried, for us..."

"But to eat food made with a mother's love--there's nothing like it," Sanji says. He doesn't remember personally, but he knows it must be true.

"No," Nami-san says, and for a moment her smile is soft and wistfully sad, and he would do anything to brighten it.

Then Nami-san raises her head, winks at him. "But truth be told--I'd rather be eating yours."

"Forever and always, Nami-san," Sanji vows, and Nami-san's grin is sweeter than any mikan on her tree.


End file.
